How to install VMware Tools
This is taken from: http://www.trustix.net/wiki/index.php/VMwareTools
How to install VMware Tools
This has (so far) only been verified to work on VMware Workstation v5.5 and a TSL 3.0 installation with the following groups installed: “Minimal with SSH”, “Commonly used local utilities” and “Commonly used network utilities”; a typical, almost minimal, TSL system.
Required packages
You need the following packages installed on the system to get VMware Tools to compile the needed modules (other packages may be installed due to dependencies):
make gcc glibc-devel kernel-source
All in one using swup:
swup --install make gcc kernel-source glibc-devel
n.b. –ignore-filter may be required on TSL 2.2 to allow kernel-source to be installed.
Configure kernel-source
VMware tools won’t compile if you have not configured and prepared the kernel-source.
- The kernel-source installs itself in /usr/src/kernel-source-<version>. You should link this folder to /usr/src/linux:
cd /usr/src ln -s kernel-source-<version> linux
We also need to copy the kernel config file into our kernel-source:
cp /boot/config-<version> /usr/src/linux/.config
- Lets prepare the kernel-source for VMware Tools:
cd /usr/src/linux make oldconfig make modules_prepare
n.b. With TSL 2.2 use ‘make dep’ in place of ‘make modules_prepare’.
Install VMware Tools
Having your TSL 3.0 installation active, release the lock (CTRL+ALT) and go to the menu and choose:
VM -> Install VMware Tools..
Mount the virtual CD-ROM containing the VMware tools and install the rpm there. Then unmount it.
mount /mnt/cdrom rpm -Uhv /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-<version>-i386.rpm umount /mnt/cdrom
Compile and configure VMware modules for TSL
To finish the VMware Tools installation we run the VMware tools configure script and it will compile the VMware Tools modules:
vmware-config-tools.pl
Answer yes to all questions and all but the X Windows display driver is configured. See below for X Window driver support.
Optimized network driver – VMXnet
When TSL 3.0 was installed as guest OS it found and installed the pcnet32 driver. You could stick with it, but I would recommend you change it for the optimized vmxnet driver which was just compiled. The following instructions are displayed after vmware-config-tools.pl finish to help you replace the network driver:
service network stop rmmod pcnet32 rmmod vxnet vi /etc/modprobe.conf /etc/mkinitrd/modules <-- change vmnics to vmxnet tsl-fixboot.sh --install <kernel-version> depmod -a modprobe vmxnet service network start
X Window
You need the following packages installed to have the X Window driver compile (other packages may download and install due to dependencies):
xorg-x11 xorg-x11-devel
As always, you may install them all in one using swup:
swup --install xorg-x11 xorg-x11-devel
Now run vmware-config-tools.pl again to compile the svga driver:
vmware-config-tools.pl
NB! You may get a warning about not being able to compile the vmxnet driver. Just ignore that. You already have it installed if you followed the instructions above.
Please note, this will only give you a minimalistic xorg-x11 without gnome or another DE/WM. I would recommend you check out the Desktop Environment section to get a fully working and useful desktop.
If you get the error when compiling the tool: “The kernel defined by this directory of header files does not have the same address space size as your running kernel.”
The way I fixed it was just by using a newer version of VMware-tools. I used the source from ESX 3.0 and you can search on the web and you should be able to find it.